by Brown, TW
The shadows had joined from the surrounding buildings, casting the entire area in gloom. As the day passed, Catie had listened to Kalisha’s story. It was nothing she had not heard or even witnessed before. It was the way of the world now.
Something Kevin had said a number of times popped up in her mind at one point while Kalisha was recounting some incident when her brother had climbed a tree and gotten stuck, crying until she had come and plucked him from the branches; basically, the run-of-the-mill big sister stuff.
“People think that humanity is in some sort of tailspin. I think we are simply returning to our more natural state. We were a tribal culture for much longer than we have been domesticated city dwellers.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” Kalisha’s harsh whisper snapped Catie out of her daydream.
Catie looked around and realized that it was now almost completely dark. She shook her head to clear it, but could do nothing for the renewed ache in her heart that existed where Kevin had once filled her with love and contentment.
“You were dreaming…kept saying a name over and over. Ke—”
“I know whose name I was probably saying, let’s just go!” Catie snapped a bit more harshly than she intended.
If her feelings were hurt, Kalisha didn’t say a thing; she turned and waded out of the brush that had been their cover for the majority of the day. The pair crept along, moving over to a partially crumbling wall and hugging it as they made their way. After a while, Kalisha held up a hand to signal a halt. She tugged Catie’s sleeve and then pointed to the left. Coming up the avenue were a dozen or so undead. The zombies were clustered close together and heading towards the two women.
“They probably coming from Warner Park. Folks was saying that one of the cells broke up near the cemetery of all places. Can you believe that? Kinda funny when you think about it.” Kalisha snickered and then ducked down low.
Without a word of warning, she bolted across the street to a destroyed storefront. She hopped into the gaping blackness that had once been a display window, and then vanished.
Catie sighed and stayed hunched down as she made certain that there were just the dozen or so. It would be nothing to take down twelve zombies. She shot a scowling glare of disapproval in the direction that her so-called guide had vanished. If she couldn’t handle a little pack of zombies like the one currently limping her direction, then the girl had no business being out; and it was seriously a stroke of luck that the young lady was even alive.
Once she was satisfied, Catie stood and headed in the direction of the oncoming zombies, moving on a track that would come from the side. They were not yet aware of her judging by the way that they made no alteration in their course. She figured she could get at least a few of them before they could react. She was raising her walking stick up so that she could spear her first target in the head when a massive clatter came from just past the zombies and to her left—in the direction that Kalisha had vanished only moments before.
“Son of a…” the words trailed off as Catie drove the point of her staff into the head of the first zombie.
Great, she thought, now this has to be a rush job so I can go rescue that stupid girl from whatever nonsense that she has gotten herself into.
Catie made short work of the zombies and then took off at a cautious trot in the direction that the noise had been heard. She reached the end of the building and discovered a narrow and nearly pitch black alley.
“Yeah, I’m not going in there,” Catie breathed.
“Why would you?” a voice asked from over her shoulder causing Catie to let out an uncharacteristic squeak of fear. It also caused her to spin and lash out, connecting with a solid punch to Kalisha’s face.
“What the hell did you do that for?” the younger girl managed around hands that were now cupped over her nose.
“Are you that stupid?” Catie snapped, and then quieted her voice when a distant moan answered on the night breeze. “You’re just lucky that I didn’t run you through with my staff.”
“I motioned for you to stay put,” the girl retorted, shoving Catie back with a bloody hand.
“I never saw you do any such thing.”
“Look, we can stand here and argue all night, but we both heard that moan. We gotta beat feet.”
Catie cocked her head to the side and considered Kalisha for a second before she asked, “What are you not telling me?”
The girl’s eyes opened wide and she instantly gave away the fact that Catie was on to something. Now it was Catie’s turn to plant her hands on her hips and give a level stare.
“Listen, there ain’t been no walkers in these parts for over seven months. Not one!” Her emphasis on that last word was harsh. “Now you show up, the Beasties are out snatching kids again, and we got undead crawling all over the place like it was the beginning of the apocalypse.”
Catie bit her tongue. This girl had no idea what the early days were like. Chances were more than high that she had no real recollection of the Old World beyond stories. If she thought that a dozen or so were big numbers, she should have seen that herd back in Wyoming.
“…Dean wants us to just ride it out, but I say we are gonna end up either kidnapped or used as zombie lures by the Beasties if we don’t hit them first.”
“Wait!” Now this girl was speaking in a language that Catie understood. “Are you saying that your group or whatever is deciding on whether or not to get into a war with this other group?”
“Glad to see you were actually paying attention,” Kalisha snorted. “You had that look on your face again like you were ignoring me.”
Catie wondered how the girl could see her face so clearly in the dark, but she had bigger fish to fry at the moment. This place had bad guys, and it had people who were considering the option of taking the fight to them. Maybe she had just found the spot to camp for the winter.
It was in that moment that Catie realized what it was that she had been looking for as she wandered aimlessly these past few weeks. She needed a good fight to get the rest of the poison of anger from her system. Sure, she might actually be backing the wrong horse; there were always two sides to every story. That was of little consequence at the moment.
Catie would stay if these people would have her. She would undoubtedly be the outsider, but she knew her stuff when it came to a fight. Maybe she would get lucky and somebody would challenge her. Nothing moved you up the social ladder like punching out the leader of a group.
If she could get accepted by these people and help take the fight to these Beastie Boys, then maybe she would have a place to stay until winter passed. After that, she already had her mind made up. She would go back home. The others deserved to know how Kevin had died. After that, it was anybody’s guess.
One thing at a time, Catie warned herself.
Falling in behind the young girl, Catie listened intently as she was given what she considered to be way too much information. After all, she was still basically a stranger. Yet Kalisha was now reciting life stories on resident after resident of her little clan.
“We need to be careful now.”
Catie slowed and took in her surroundings. They had just finished crossing a large overgrown park and were coming to some sort of interstate. Up to this point, she had been doing her best to catalog all that she was being told. If she stayed with these people for any length of time, this would be one of the first things she addressed. Information was power, and this girl had all but given up her entire community in the span of a couple of hours as they walked.
One other thing that Catie had noticed were the glows of what had to be campfires—or the modern day equivalent, which, as Kevin always liked to say, were simply fires. Some were several stories up, burning on the upper floors of surrounding buildings that were now obviously homes to a surprising number of people.
“There are four other settlements all within a mile of each other here,” Kalisha explained; once again the girl showed no restraint in divulgin
g information. “We all mostly trade with each other, but there is a rule about passing through each other’s territory without permission.”
“What kind of rule?” Catie asked as she craned her neck to look over the guard rail of the overpass that they were now scrambling across in a crouch.
“You don’t do it.”
They were crossing train tracks. Catie fought to keep the chorus of that infernal song out of her head and did her best to look for landmarks. That was when she realized that daylight was within an hour or so of breaking. They had been walking all night!
She figured out their destination as they altered course just a bit towards a complex of buildings. She could see light from more than just a few towers. That was a good sign. She was even happier when they stopped at the edge of a clearing that was basically scorched earth for at least a hundred yards. Nobody was just going to stroll up to this place and take them by surprise.
“Now we wait,” Kalisha flopped down on the ground and crossed her legs.
“Wait for what?” Catie asked.
“Daylight.”
“Don’t be skimpy with the details now, missy.”
“The standing orders are to take down anybody that approaches at night.”
“What if it is some poor person just out and about?”
The girl looked up at Catie, her face readable in the gray of pre-dawn. She was incredulous. “Who would just be…out and about?”
“Umm…you were when we met. As was I if you think about it.”
“No, I was looking for the jerks that took my little brother,” Kalisha insisted. “And you…” Her voice faded as she realized that, in all her talking, she really had not gotten any information as to what Catie was doing in the Beastie Boys’ territory. “Hey! You never did tell me why you were here.”
“Maybe when we get to your camp, I don’t like the idea of having to do this a hundred more times.” Catie started to her feet as the first rays of the sun were creeping over the tops of a few of the buildings.
“Now I won’t know for a week,” Kalisha sighed as she jogged to catch up.
Of course, that comment made Catie stop suddenly, which then caused Kalisha to run into her and knock them both over. On reflexive instinct, Catie threw out her hands and twisted her body so that she landed mostly on her side, and her arms absorbed a majority of the shock.
“What do you mean you won’t know for a week?” Catie grunted as the two untangled themselves.
“Quarantine,” was all that the girl managed to say before a loud gong sounded from the direction of the compound that was to be their ultimate destination. “They see us.”
Any thoughts that Catie had of changing her mind and running for it vanished when a large gate swung open and a trio of individuals on horseback came out at a full gallop. Cursing herself for not having anything in the way of a backup plan, Catie did the only thing she could considering the circumstances; she raised both hands above her head and waited.
***
“You say that yours is the only community in the area that you know of?” Eldon Lindsay asked for what had to be the sixth time during this apparently endless interrogation.
“You might not have been all that familiar with the Dakotas back in the day,” Catie leaned forward and gave the man her coldest glare, “but there weren’t all that many people in those parts before the zombies.”
The door opened and a slender woman with gray hair walked in. “You’ve bored this nice lady enough, Eldon,” the woman said. She made a show of keeping the door open until the man got up and limped out. “You’ll have to excuse him, he doesn’t trust anybody. The last community he lived at was taken down by a bunch of them immunes.”
Catie did not say a word. Her scar had been spotted right away during her strip search. As was her current condition of being pregnant. That had started the first line of questioning.
“Did you know the father?”
“Was he immune as well?”
“Did he die after conception due to infection?”
Seeing no reason to lie, Catie had answered their questions with: “Yes…Yes…No.” Of course that had also been the extent of her reply.
“So am I to be killed as a heretic? Experimented on like some alien species? Or simply killed out of hand?” Catie asked once the woman had sat down across from her.
“Heavens, you have met some interesting people in your travels if those are your first three questions for me,” the woman laughed.
Catie studied this woman’s face, making it a point to hold eye contact. While it was true that most sociopaths could look you in the eye and lie with no problem, Catie still felt that the eyes would be the best indicator if there was something to worry about.
The woman had a pleasant enough face. It was showing the signs of age with a few lines and wrinkles. However, there was a natural upturn to the lips as if a smile might be a real and regular thing with this woman. Her eyes were a shade of blue that verged on gray, just like her hair. She was dressed in a set of denim coveralls and wore a tan shirt that looked like it might be made of some sort of cured animal hide.
“And you haven’t met those sorts?” Catie tried to hide the sarcasm, but failed miserably.
“Oh yes. More than I would have ever imagined.” The woman’s expression darkened. “I have met some of the vilest examples that humanity has to offer since this craziness began a lifetime ago. But I have also met some wonderful and beautiful people as well.”
“So then, what is going to be done with me?” Catie asked. She could have taken the woman’s bait and started sharing stories of people and experiences, but she wasn’t going to give up anything until she felt she was safe.
“Not one for small talk, are you,” the woman said with another good-natured laugh that sounded absolutely genuine.
“You will forgive me if I am not ready to just spill everything like little Kalisha.”
That was the second time that Catie witnessed the woman’s features cloud over just a bit. She was not sure whether it was something to do with the girl in general, or the fact that Kalisha had not only walked a complete stranger to the gates of their community, but also apparently spilled a plethora of information.
“Kalisha is…”
“In big trouble?” Catie finished when the woman seemed to hang up on her next word.
“You could say that.”
“Well, don’t be too hard on her. She was only doing what she felt was right. Apparently your people are content to sit back and let some rival faction snatch up your kids without doing anything about it.” Catie saw something flash across the woman’s expression. She wasn’t sure; however, when the woman’s eyes flicked to the right where the two-way mirror was mounted on the wall and then back with just a slight raising of the eyebrows, she was pretty sure she was being signaled.
“We haven’t actually been introduced,” the woman spoke with what Catie saw and heard as a false cheerfulness. This put her on an even higher state of alert. Yet, she felt that there was something about this woman that she wanted to trust.
“You already know my name,” Catie said, sitting back in her chair and folding her arms across herself as she regarded the older woman across from her with an arched eyebrow.
“My name is Denise DeCarlo.”
“And what is your role here besides coming in as the good cop in this interrogation.”
The woman twitched at the corners of her mouth as if she was about to smile and quickly decided against it. “You are quite the cynic.”
“No, I am a realist. In this world, that requires a degree of cynicism. Maybe you have been behind these walls a little too long and have forgotten what is out there.”
“Yes, I understand that you came all the way from South Dakota? That must have been quite an adventure.”
“So, how long am I going to be kept in this quarantine?”
“Actually, since you are immune, you will be allowed out today.” Catie heard the condition co
ming in Denise’s tone. “You will have to submit to one little thing.”
“And that would be?”
“Nothing dark or sinister, I can assure you.”
With that, Denise DeCarlo rolled up her sleeve and revealed a metal device. It couldn’t be called a bracelet. It was about three inches long and seemed to be a solid device that could not be simply slid off. The woman rolled her arm over so that Catie could see the underside of this contraption. It had some sort of crimping and what looked like a weld or solder line as a final measure to prevent the red tinted piece of metal from being removed without serious work.
“You?” Catie glanced up at Denise. “You’re immune to the bite?”
“I worked as the manager of a grocery store. I was working the night that a mob of people came and just cleaned us out. I pulled all of my employees up into my office for protection. We waited out the riot, and once it was quiet, we crept out to get a better look at the damage. They had run through the front entrance with a flatbed truck and when they left, well, that allowed the zombies to just wander in. It was still so early, that doctor lady from the CDC hadn’t made the admission yet that these people were the walking dead.”
Catie found herself leaning forward and listening with rapt attention. This was not part of the interrogation. The tears that were welling up in the woman’s eyes came freely, and the sorrow that suddenly filled Denise’s expression convinced Catie that this was a very real experience being shared.
“The little girl couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. She was just wandering down the aisle by herself. She was wearing a little pink hoody top with some Disney princess on it, but the blood…so much. Her face was shrouded by the hood, but honestly, I don’t know if seeing the eyes would have mattered at that moment. All I saw was a child that was in need of help.”
The two sat in silence for a few moments. Finally, Denise pushed away from the table and got to her feet. She waved to the two-way mirror and then turned back to Catie.
“You are free to go. You will need to go to the indoctrination building. If you choose to stay, you need to get one of the bracers. If you choose to leave, then you will be given all of your things and will be allowed to stay a maximum of three days. There are restrictions as to where you are allowed to go without the bracer.”